


you're the only friend i need (the minds we had)

by kiira



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, clarke is in there for like a ..... sCENE but w/e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3526826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiira/pseuds/kiira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she gets drunk more and more (and more and more) as you get older and you learn that daughter is another word for food rations and food rations is another word for moonshine. </p><p>aka</p><p>in which i have fun creating character backstory</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the only friend i need (the minds we had)

(You were four years old when she disappeared proper for the first time; it was something close to an adventure and you wandered around the ship, slept in strange corners and got lost somewhere behind the mess hall.)

An older girl dragged you back to your rooms, her brow furrowed and stayed with you the night when she saw that the big empty bed was gonna stay a mess, unslept in (you were four years old and the kitchen was empty.)

You don’t remember her name anymore, not really, but she left a loaf of bread and made you promise not to leave your room until your mom got back. (She braids your hair into something like a crown on top of your head, and tells you about the classes she’s taking, something about being a doctor).

“I’m gonna be a  _dinosaur scientist_ ,” you tell her excitedly, because the boy who lives next door has some old book with pictures of dinosaurs in it, and you want to pet the dinosaurs (wonder where the dinosaurs sleep at night).

The girl smiles at you, tucks the last bit of your hair into the braid. “I’m sure you’ll be the best dinosaur scientist on the Ark, Raven,” and with one last worried look above your head, she slipped out the door.

/

(Your mother doesn’t come back for another three days; she comes back laughing, stumbling).

Your hair is falling out of the braids, and Mama doesn’t look at you as she takes another drink out of the bottle.

/

She gets drunk more and more (and more and more) as you get older and you learn that  _daughter_  is another word for  _food rations_  and  _food rations_  is another word for  _moonshine_. 

When you’re almost eight, you try stealing food from the mess hall because you’re hungry, you’re so so hungry; you can feel the ache of bones and the whole room spins when you stand up (you don’t really stand up anymore, stay curled in your corner with the picture book the boy next door gave you, read it over and over and over) (try to forget what emptiness feels like).

Stealing doesn’t really work (you’re caught, and the man who catches you has kind brown eyes). He lets you go with a warning, feels the way your bones click under your skin (lets you know you can get  _killed_  for this).

There’s a knock on the door, and for a split second, terror is stronger than the starvation.

What if they’re coming for you (what if the man told, told that he caught you stealing, what if you’re going to get floated)?

You stumble across the kitchen, consider hiding under the sink for a half second but they’ll find you (they’ll find you, they’ll find you, they’ll find you). But you open the door, and it’s just the boy from next door, Flynn or Finn or something.

(It kind of hurts to think).

“Um,” he says, looking at you with big eyes, “you haven’t been in school for like a month or something and Ms Yang told me to come check on you…” and his voice trails off as he cranes his neck over your shoulder, trying to peek into your house.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, “please get out of my house.”

He laughs (he sounds seven almost eight and you sound something infinity; grip the doorframe with bones, try not to sway), he rolls his eyes. “I’m standing in the hallway, stupid. This isn’t the house. Are you sick?”

“I guess,” and shut the door. Not two seconds pass before he’s knocking on it again.

“I forgot,” he says, “my mom says I’m supposed to invite you over for dinner. Your mom too.”

“She’s not home,” you say quickly, slip out of the apartment, “let’s go.”

/

You eat four bowls of the soup Finn’s mom made and throw up as soon as you get back to your own house and (stupid, stupid, stupid Raven, because when are you going to eat again?)

/

Finn comes over every week after that, and he brings the work that you missed at school (“I’m sick,” you tell him, but some mornings you can’t get up and your ribs feel chalky empty hollow). Some days he brings half of his sandwich and you wonder if this is something he does for all his friends (don’t look at the sometimes confusion in his eyes when he glances over into the kitchen gathering dust, don’t look, don’t look).

Eventually, you go back to school (eventually, your mother stops coming back drunk in the middle of the night; she stays out for weeks and shows up every day the food rations stamps come in the mail).

You discover that you’re  _good_  at school, and if you dig your nails into your palms hard enough, you can focus on multiplication and asteroids (not the hollow fuzziness in your brain, your hands that drifts over your eyes when you stop biting on the inside of your cheek).

You’re  _hungry_  and halfway through gym class one afternoon you faint.

/

After that: everything is the same (you lie and say you forgot to eat breakfast) and Finn comes over after school with some kind of meat wrapped in his math homework.

“You need to hand that in tomorrow,” you say, and he shrugs.

“We had leftovers,” and the word crinkles on his tongue because leftovers are something in the books you read as a kid, the stories saved from Earth, because leftovers aren’t something the Ark has room for, and he’s lying for you. 

You nod though, lying is easy, lying is comfortable (and he rips a piece of the meat off offers it to you).

/

You’re almost nine when you start to tag along after the mechanics, asking them questions and being as annoying as possible.

A girl in your class, Alicia, promised you that she could get you into one of their work rooms (her mother is studying for her space walk exam, and Alicia brags that she gets to hang out with the mechanics everyday after school), and you believe her.

You end up in more trouble than you’ve ever been in before (your mother even shows up at the school; it’s been two and a half weeks since you’ve seen her).

She drags you home by one of the messy braids that Finn struggled to put in that morning; sits you down at the kitchen table.

“You will not get in trouble, girl, you will not draw attention to this family. Do you understand me.” And it’s not a question, not at all, so you look down at your hands.

“I said,” and she yanks your head up,  _hard_ , by your braid, “do you fucking understand me?”

You nod; grit your teeth together because you can feel something hot and angry burning up through your throat.

She give you one last look (hatred maybe; or regret, and leaves).

/

Finn keeps sharing his food, sneaks it away from his table and puts it on yours (neither of your are eating enough but you can’t quite bring yourself to care) (it’s more than you’ve ever had in your entire life and sometimes Finn looks at you like you’re something more than Raven).

He kisses you when you’re thirteen and you push him away because you can’t do this, because everything is too overwhelming and he’s your only friend.

/

He doesn’t try to kiss you again, not for three years and (you go to parties together and you see him kissing other girls; ignore the ache that builds up behind your hands).

“Oh my  _god_ ,” a girl standing next to you laughs, “this is my favorite song!”

She’s pretty, blonde, and you think you may have biology with her, but you also couldn’t give her a name if you tried. She grabs your hand and pulls you into the pulsing crowd, dances close to you, her hair getting in your mouth.

“I’m Clarke,” she shouts, “Do you want something to drink?”

“Water, please,” and she pouts a little. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you should have water too, Clarke.”

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes and twists around so she’s whispering in your ear, “wanna get out of here?”

And you  _totally_  shouldn’t go make out with some girl you probably (you’re still not 100% sure if she’s in your biology class or not) just met, but she’s hot, you’re hot and there’s definitely nothing else to do on a Saturday night.

Except study, but if you don’t ace the test on Monday, there’s something wrong with the universe.

“Let’s go,” and Clarke grins at you.

She’s very well-versed in the dark makeout spots on the Ark, because she shoves you into a corner and is kissing you before you get your bearings as to where you are. Clarke’s a good kisser, her hands in your hair, on your hip, under your shirt.

Someone makes a soft moaning noise, but it’s not you. Probably.

(She ends up sleeping on your couch because she’s still tipsy and doesn’t want her mom to find out; she kisses you again the next morning and whispers  _we should do this again sometime_ )

(You don’t).

/

Finn rolls his eyes when you tell him about Clarke and then you lean across the couch and kiss him hard.

It’s easy, you realize, kissing him: he smiles and you’re laughing and it’s not really so much a kiss anymore as pressing your faces together but it’s  _Finn_  and it’s you and it’s right.

You kiss him again.

/

Your mother dies when you’re seventeen: all you can feel is relief.

(Sometimes you still feel hollow when you move; sometimes you remember she was your age when she had you and you shake off the pity because it’s so much easier to hate.)

It’s an officer who breaks the news to you, sits you down in the medical offices with a cup of tea and a kind look (you already know what she’s going to say).

She drowned, you learn, in her own vomit (drowned in space and laughter burns in your stomach.) You take another sip of tea.

She’s dead and for the first time you feel truly alive.

/

(Being in space is everything you dreamed it would be; your whole self feels together and full.)

The Earth is tiny, hazy beneath you and the stars are absolutely, absolutely infinite.


End file.
